Moore pitches to the ‘sharks.’ (Disney/Christopher Willard images)
Joye B. Moore’s pies may have captured the tastebuds of the sharks, but she ultimately went home empty-handed from the “Shark Tank.”
Moore, the owner and founder of South Richmond-based piemaker Joyebells, appeared on last week’s episode of the ABC investor pitch show to ask for $600,000 for a 10 percent equity stake in the company, suggesting a valuation of $6 million.
The show hosts both budding and established entrepreneurs to pitch in front of a group of multimillionaire and billionaire angel investors, including Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary and others.
Moore presented the sharks with samples of her sweet potato, peach and pumpkin pies during the episode, which was filmed several months ago and aired Friday.
“Joyebells is home to that mouth-watering, Southern, backwoods country deliciousness,” Moore said in her pitch.
Moore founded Joyebells in 2019.
The investors unanimously praised the pies for their tastiness.
“I’m gonna give you ten out of ten. I’ve never given that for pie,” O’Leary said. “This is amazing. They’re all fantastic.”
“The pumpkin is insane,” Cuban added.
But even with several sharks saying Moore’s pies were the best they’d ever had on the show, her sales figures failed to garner the same admiration.
Moore told the sharks that Joyebells has reached $16.1 million in lifetime sales since its launch in 2019, but that her annual sales fell from $7.7 million in 2023 to a projected $4.3 million in 2024.
Joyebells faced problems in 2023 when more than 315,000 of its peach pies were pulled from shelves after a manufacturing issue led to the pies being made with unripened peaches. The company lost its partnership with Sam’s Club and pulled all of its shelf-stable products from stores.
It sold only through QVC for all of 2024, and is currently in the midst of a rebrand and a return to grocery stores across the U.S. It has enlisted an unidentified family-owned, homestyle pie manufacturer for the relaunch and plans to bring its new pies to Midwestern Schnucks grocery stores in April, Mid-Atlantic Kroger stores in June and Northeast Costco locations sometime this year.
The sharks cautioned Moore about her manufacturing relaunch, voicing concerns about Joyebells’ production costs versus selling prices. Moore told the sharks that her sweet potato pies cost $5.23 to make and are sold at a 35 percent markup to retailers, who are then selling pies for $10.99 each to customers.
While the new manufacturer Joyebells is working with is getting the production cost down to $4.96 per pie, O’Leary noted that number still wasn’t enough for the business to be profitable.
“Your cost of goods are a dollar too high…you’ve got some work to do there, because you will never make money with this model. You just won’t,” he said.
Moore’s appearance on the show had been a year in the making.
With multiple sharks noting that $600,000 was a large investment to be unsure about the return, the five investors chose not to work with Moore.
Still, Moore remained in good spirits during her post-pitch confessional.
“I came, I tried, and for anyone else out there, no matter what things look like or how they feel, you keep moving,” she said with a smile.
Moore was largely prevented from discussing the episode prior to its airing and could not reached for further comment on Monday.
She previously told BizSense she learned of “Shark Tank” auditions happening in Newport News last April for the show’s 16th season. She went through several rounds of pitching her product and onboarding last summer and autumn before getting the green light to appear on the show. She was flown out to Los Angeles to film the episode.
Moore started Joyebells in 2019, selling sweet potato pies made from the recipes of her third-great grandmother, Susan Mae Howell. The company has three employees and is headquartered in Hatch Kitchen RVA in the Manchester area.
Along with the upcoming return of retail sales, Joyebells has just closed on its first round of pre-orders through its website for its three main pie flavors, along with a new apple lattice pie.
Keep going! RVA is behind you and we admire your tenacity.
Wishing them all the best…the pies are excellent. Hope they can find a way to increase their margin and turn a profit.
Congratulations – you received National exposure for your product.